Overseas investment strategy of the two giants of gaming
A simple inventory of Tencent’s operations during this period.
acquired a well-known American online game developer and publisher in 2015, Riot Game . In 2009, Riot Technology launched the top online game " League of Legends ", which has been popular to date, and this is also considered by the outside world to be the most critical acquisition of the internationalization of Tencent game . The phenomenon of "League of Legends" has also made Tencent firmly ranked first among the world's leading e-sports companies.
In 2016, Tencent spent US$8.6 billion to acquire more than 80% of shares of Supercell, a gaming company for Finland. At that time, as the largest investment in the history of electronic games, the entire gaming circle was shocked. Supercell has developed a large number of classic mobile games, such as " Clash of Clans ", "Battle of the Wild", "Cartoon Farm", "Royal War", etc. Almost every mobile game produced by Supercell is popular in the market.
In addition to these two famous acquisitions, Tencent acquired 48.4% of the issued shares of Epic Games as early as 2012. Epic Games not only has the world-famous " Fortnite ", but also the 3D game engine, Unreal Engine, a virtual engine that is specially used to develop games.
Tencent acquires equity of game development company Blue Hole (Krafton) in a gradual manner. In 2017, Blue Hole's game " PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds " became popular all over the world and was a great success after its release. According to Leifeng.com, "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds" sold more than 150 million copies on platforms such as Steam, becoming the pioneer of a new generation of game categories that are comparable to MOBA. According to media reports, as of 2020, Tencent held 16% of Krafton's shares, second only to the founder of the company.
In July 2021, the British gaming giant Sumo Group issued an announcement to confirm the rumors of Tencent’s acquisition. Sumo Group has participated in the production of a large number of 3A games, including "Dungeons and Dragons", "Tomb Raider", "Green Forest: Outlaws and Legends", " Killer 2", etc.
In addition to these, Tencent also holds shares in game manufacturers and studios around the world, such as Ubisoft , Activ Blizzard , Roblox, Frontier, Garena, Kakao Games, Inflexion Games, etc.
NetEase has begun to accelerate overseas game investment in recent years, but the investment style is very different from Tencent.
In 2017, NetEase participated in the American game company Niantic, and its main work is the popular Pokémon Go.
In October 2021, Japanese game producer Takaichi Suda announced through his personal Twitter that NetEase has acquired the Grasshopper Studio it founded from GungHo Online Entertainment. Grasshopper Studio’s representative works include the “Heroes No More” series, “Chain Saw Sweetheart” and so on.
In addition to these, NetEase has established a series of exclusive product matrix overseas, either through self-built studios or through acquisitions of studios, such as 24Entertainment Studio, Jackalope Games, Grounding, Kepler Interactive, Mingyue Studio, etc.
NetEase adopts more localized strategies to deepen its overseas markets, which is completely different from Tencent’s acquisition strategy. Is the acquisition of
is the end of the game industry?
I believe many veteran players are not familiar with who the developers or studios behind these games are, but through the simple review just now, we can find a feature of the game industry: acquisitions and acquisitions are the norm.
In fact, from the operation of Microsoft , you can also have a basic judgment on the normality of this market: in addition to the sky-high acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the acquisition of B Society's parent company Zenimax Media, as well as the acquisition of game companies such as Obsidian and Mojang, are almost always a major event that shocks the industry.
From this perspective, Tencent is worse than Microsoft: the acquisition was at the beginning of shining, and continued operations reached the top of the world. This is true in "League of Legends", "Clash of Clans", and so in "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds".
In fact, this idea is very correct. Because if the game is not original, then the behavior of promoting it through imitation may have a counterproductive effect. After all, after other IPs become popular, it is very difficult to create a homogeneous and similar IP, and there is a risk of falling into the public opinion of "imitating others".
Although Tencent often pays high prices to recharge faith, it can often recreate its peak through its super operational capabilities. This is true in "League of Legends", "Clash of Clans", and so in "PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds". This is a capability that many game manufacturers do not have.
NetEase's investment style has started from small and beautiful. It may be easier to understand using an analogy in the investment world: Tencent loves the trend, and NetEase loves to ambush.
NetEase often builds its own studio, or purchases one of the studios of overseas companies, and then creates new vitality. On the one hand, the constituents of these studios often have successful experience; on the other hand, the new games produced by these studios after they become independent are likely to have hot games with long sales.
NetEase has rich experience in self-developed games. Whether it is " Onmyoji ", "Harry Potter", or " Eternal Haunt ", NetEase is cautious, but precise every time it takes action.
However, the success of self-developed games is often difficult to replicate. Using Tencent for comparison: Many netizens may have made negative comments at the beginning of the birth of " King of Glory ", but in fact, at that time, almost no MOBA mobile game on the market could achieve similar levels, so negative comments were quickly replaced by "really fragrant monsters". But since then, Tencent has not yet had an original mobile game that surpasses "Honor of Kings".
And this is why NetEase invests more in various small and beautiful game studios: stronger originality and hot products are more likely to appear. Each studio has its own soul and genes, and the game styles are very diverse and the gameplay is unconventional. But this means that the team size is limited and many imaginative ideas cannot be truly implemented. If you want to expand your scale while ensuring creativity, acquisition is also the final end.
Epilogue
Mergo and acquisition are very common in the gaming industry, and the main reason is easy to understand - originality is difficult.
self-developed games should keep the gameplay novel and the plot is fascinating, and the image effect and reaction delay must be guaranteed, which is equivalent to requiring a person to be both literary and martial.
Judging from the investment trends of domestic game manufacturers during this period, 3A games have gradually become one of the core strategies for many manufacturers to increase their investment.
If the future is best-selling, when self-developed games made in China are sought after and loved around the world, we may think of "when did Chinese games begin to rise", and I think this era is the answer to this question.
